Cassette 7: Spring 1997/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires''SIDE A Sigrid. I have been underestimating the logistical requirements of our organisation, I think. Over the past months it’s become clearer that the further our message spreads, the more systems we must put in place for containing it. Ideas spread easily, but they do not easily maintain their purity. They distort and mutate, if you don’t keep a close eye on them. Even if an idea stays in the mind of one person, you cannot be sure that it won’t change while it’s there, morph into something alien and strange. It has been encouraging, as I’ve travelled, to find how many people in so many different places are receptive to my teachings. But being receptive is only the beginning. If they are truly aligned with our faith, they must act in line with our actions. It is only logical. When I started this journey I had thought that I would find it hard to be away from you. Away from the group. Away from my home. And it was. It is. But as I travelled away from my home I found that I was also heading towards home. Towards many homes. In the chilly, orange and yellow woods of Lac Saint-Pierre, to the rocky, fir-lined hills of Sandpoint, to the tiled-roofs in Bangalore, to the red algae-lined shores of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s painful sometimes, to have multiple homes. You feel drawn to them all at the same time, and you cannot have them. I miss the dinner blessings of the La Palma family, and I hope they still lift my name before each meal. I miss Rosie Morales’s rugged practicality. She taught me how to clean a rifle and to conserve water in the high desert, something I never had to think much about in our home. And of course, Sigrid, I miss you. I have so many homes now. In so many places. And it is worse than that. For while some may have more than one home, for most that is all it is. But for me, all of these homes are my responsibility. I don’t know if it’s possible for you to understand, Sigrid, the way it feels to have so many vulnerable families looking to you for guidance, and to know you can never serve all of them at once. You can never save all of them at once. They are my children, almost as much as you are my child, and I am learning how to be a mother to them all. My nurturing arms cannot spread so wide as the world. I have had to think of ways to filter my leadership through others. This is not unusual, but it feels unique, perhaps because our goals and beliefs are unique. A company may have its CEO but she does not interact with every employee that serves under her. She has team leaders who report to managers who report to department heads who report to her. But what she must communicate is simple, really. Just the aims of the business and the methods by which they must be achieved in order to maximise efficiency. There is little risk of that information changing too much on its way down the chain of command. I can see who is to be trusted most among our collective. I have found it, for the most part, simple to select deputies in each region, and then in each camp. Each branch now has a deputy and each deputy, I am confident, is aware of our goals. They understand my plan and are able to reassure their groups of its details and the reasons for them. But it’s always important to be aware of what may be lost, or indeed added, in each additional layer of communication. You must, at all times, be conscious of the potential impact of personal interpretation. Of course I can communicate as directly with everyone as I do with you, and I do. Twice a week I set aside 4 hours for myself to make cassettes to send to each group of my followers that they may be kept pure and certain in their faith. But it’s not the same as being there. I cannot be sure what they are thinking. I cannot always spot points of dissent or confusion. It happened recently that a group of these deputies in North America decided to take it upon themselves to begin to make The Cradle public. They organised their charges to make promotional videos which they aired on cable television stations. These ads showed them farming, eating together, living a peaceful life in nature. It was like a tourism campaign. They did not show the children they were raising, the children they were hiding from the government. They did not show their rifles, but they signalled their location and gave out a phone number to contact. Another video tilted toward shoddy artistry, showing long shadows in black and white of barren trees cast in jagged lines across a group of children playing together in a school yard. One child begins to cry and says “I want my mother,” and a woman’s hand reaches down to take the sobbing boy’s hand. “Come with me,” the woman says. He flinches, and the video cuts to a wide shot of a woman in what at first appears to be nurse’s garb, but as we zoom in, we realize it is a military or sentry’s uniform. At least one of the groups had held a demonstration in their town square already and several more were planning them. They were making signs and writing slogans. It was all part of a campaign to launch their version of my ideals on the world. They were arrogant enough to believe that they could persuade the world to embrace familial bonds all on their own. They were myopic enough to believe the world was ready for their message. I say their message, not mine. Not ours. Because their actions demonstrate that they have not paid sufficient attention to my teachings. They do not understand so we must assume that their message is as flawed as their actions. So you see, Sigrid, the difficult position I am in. I had to replace the false deputies swiftly, I had to show that these kinds of individual interpretations of my words are dangerous and will not be tolerated. It is always painful to be forced to punish one’s children. There are times – it is shameful to admit – there are times when I wish this burden, this responsibility, had been placed on someone else’s shoulders. I know I should be stronger than to wish that. I should be happy to bear this weight, it is my privilege. It is comforting to know that I am not the first to wish this cup could be taken from me. SIDE B My friends, I speak to you today in sadness. In grief. There are times when you are confronted with the reality of the world so starkly and coldly that you feel truly alone. There are times when you are forced to question whether anyone is truly on your side. You look at the faces of the people you know, the people you love, the ones who you had thought truly saw and understood you and suddenly find them to be strangers. I had believed that I could have faith in those who professed to have faith in me. When they told me they recognised the truth of my teachings I was naive enough not to doubt them. But I have been made to recognise my naivety. I have been made to recognise how foolish my confidence in others was. In short, I have been betrayed. I have strived over recent days to feel compassion to those who have betrayed me. I have reminded myself, as I now remind you, that weakness in others should only ever be treated with acceptance and patience. Weak people cannot help that they are weak. Those who are afraid cannot will themselves to be fearless. And yet we cannot turn away from the truth of weakness and fear. They are a rot in the centre of humanity. They are counter to every noble ideal, a breach in the human spirit that sees our ruin time and time again. And you, my children, have sheltered this weakness and this fear. You have almost been our undoing. I speak to all of you, not just those involved in the recent events that have led to this moment. You may not be to blame for the incident in question but are you free from sin? Have you always been faithful, steadfast in your support of our cause. You have not. Not one of you. I have given myself to you and you have repaid me with what? With doubt? With dissent? With weakness. With fear. With betrayal. Tell me why I must sacrifice myself for a cause that no one else can hold true to. I know that none of us are made perfect. I believe this to be natural and necessary. It is only through striving together to overcome our flaws that we can become more than we were made. It is only through forgiveness that we can develop the patience and understanding we need. In that sense, I must thank you. I must thank you for helping me to grow a little more in grace. For helping me learn more about how to accept my fellow man. I hope you all are also learning about your responsibilities to your fellow man. I hope that, through this experience, you will all learn more about me. I hope that you realise anew my commitment to you all. To our cause. To our sacred task. I hope I enable you to recognise that there is nothing I will not do for you. There is nothing I won’t forgive, in you. There is no betrayal, no punishment, no reckoning but those that serve to strengthen my bond to each and every one of you. I am building a community, with all of you, and I serve that community with my whole being. We must be a light to this world, and we cannot fulfil that task, that sacred duty, unless we are united. Unless we are whole and untarnished. All flaws must be mended, and I will mend them. All stains must be removed, and I will remove them. I will ensure that we are worthy of the task we are entrusted with. Whatever the cost. I will and have borne hardships for this task. We all must bear hardships. We all must suffer pain. And it is hard to persist when the road seems so rocky, when the way is so steep. But if it was not hard then why would we need faith? We all need to have faith in our task, in the assurance of its eventual success. Which means you must trust in me. You must have faith in my visions and my teachings for they are the way forward. And I must have faith in you. I must have faith no matter how many times you falter, no matter how many times you fail me. And you must believe that despite your failings I will continue to have faith in you. I will take the time it needs to correct you, no matter how much pain it causes all of us. The world is lost and it does not even know it. Humanity is in darkness and continues to forge ahead as if the way was blazing with light. They need us, they all need my vision. And I cannot deliver that vision alone. I have been chosen to lead and you have all been chosen to support me on this path. You have been called to rally to the charge and I must ask you, again and again, to answer that call. You are all my children, you are all my army. I have asked a lot of you. I must continue to ask a lot. You must prepare. You must be ready. You must continue to follow my commands, to have faith in my vision. It is the only way. I am the only way. Category:Transcripts